


jacks and sevens

by watfordbird33



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Absurdly Stupid Card Games, Alternate Universe - College/University, F/M, Jazz Pianists, Marlene "Moronic Pillock" McKinnon, Past Tense (yes it's still me), a lot of swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-09
Updated: 2017-06-09
Packaged: 2018-11-11 13:42:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11149608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/watfordbird33/pseuds/watfordbird33
Summary: The first boy--rumpled black curls, glasses, Converse and joggers--grinned, to his credit. He had a nice smile, dimples and white teeth. He said, “This isn’t any game I’ve ever seen before.”“Oh, it’s a good one,” said Marlene; “kind of like BS, except the acronym is F-U-C-K O-F-F.”





	jacks and sevens

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings for swearing, smoking, mildly inappropriate jokes, mentions of sex, and some sexual content.
> 
> UPDATE: This is now a oneshot. It wanted to be, so I let it.

“What are you playing?”

“Your mom,” said Marlene, with straight-faced solemnity.

“She stole my line,” said Lily, stabbing a card aggressively towards Dorcas; “did you hear her? She got that from me,” she added to the two dark-haired boys gathered around their game. “Just so you know.”

“Gotta give credit where credit is due,” said Dorcas. She set down an ace and obliterated the last shred of Lily’s strategy.

“Fuck,” said Lily.

The first boy--rumpled black curls, glasses, Converse and joggers--grinned, to his credit. He had a nice smile, dimples and white teeth. He said, “This isn’t any game I’ve ever seen before.”

“Oh, it’s a good one,” said Marlene; “kind of like BS, except the acronym is F-U-C-K O-F-F.”

Dorcas cackled.

The second boy took a cigarette out of his mouth and spat ash in a decorative pattern all over Marlene’s new white polo.

“It is  _on,” _ said Marlene, and jumped to her feet. “Do you know how much I paid for that?”

The cigarette boy also had a nice smile,  although it happened to also be one of those smiles that could be easily interpreted as a smirk. He put his cigarette back in his mouth and made an obscene show out of taking a drag. “Do you know how much I paid for your mom?”

“Also my line,” said Lily; “you owe me a Coke for using it without copyright.” 

Dorcas put down a three, and then a four.

Marlene said, to the cigarette boy, “You asshole, you moronic pillock--come over here and say that to my face,” and then she called him a name so bad even Lily winced.

The cigarette boy jumped her, predictably. They fought on the outskirts of the card game in a kind of thrashing pile that looked really more like sex than anything else.

“What did he even do?"  said the boy with the glasses, bemused.

“You two interrupted our game, for one thing,” said Dorcas. She put out the cigarette that had fallen from the smirky boy’s mouth. Then, because she was Dorcas, she slipped the butt into her pocket. It was very likely that she’d add it to the collage of artifacts tacked up on her bulletin board in the dorm room. “And Marlene is a bitch and desperately attracted to your friend there.”

“A lovely bitch,” added Lily, who felt obligated. She laid her last nine down, prompting a hiss from Dorcas, and stuck out a hand to the boy with glasses. “Lily Evans.”

“James Potter,” he said, shaking. “And you are…?”

“Dorcas,” said Dorcas, unabashedly.

“A pleasure to meet you,” said James Potter. “While Sirius and--Marlene, did you say? are occupied, would you teach me your game?”

“It doesn’t work like that,” said Lily, who in spite of the No-Boys-Ever-Except-For-Marlene’s-Quick-Fucks pact was finding James Potter’s dorky formality to be quite endearing. “We invented it, and it doesn’t have rules.”

From the other side of James, Marlene let out a particularly passionate grunt.

“Sevens are good,” said Dorcas. “That’s about all we can agree on.”

Lily picked up the cards, including Marlene’s abandoned hand, shuffled them, and dealt half to Dorcas. “The rest changes, day to day. Though we also like sequences. And pairs.”

Dorcas put down an ace.

Lily said, “Only eights go with aces. You’re at negative one.”

“Damn you,” said Dorcas.

“Do you go to Hogwarts?” James Potter said. He had a funny little smile on his face, sort of amused and sort of annoyed, although the annoyance could have stemmed from the spectacle Marlene and Sirius were currently making of themselves.

“Yes,” said Lily, flipping up a four; “we’re in the Gryffindor dorms, north campus. Are you Piersdale?”

“Ellings, actually...” said James, sweetly anxious, slicking a hand back through his hair.

“That’s incredibly unfortunate.” Dorcas played two kings and a six. “I was just beginning to like you.”

Lily was inclined to agree, although she was unsure if the introduction of the dreaded Ellings had actually canceled out the liking part of the equation.

“I know our reputation,” said James, with another funny little smile. This one was self-deprecating and kind of wry. 

“Score?” said Dorcas.

“Since you asked, it’s negative three,” said Lily. She put down an ace and an eight and incited a Marlene-esque grunt from Dorcas. “We know your reputation, too,” she said, to James. “Do our opinions match up?”

“Rich entitled bastards,” said Dorcas, at the same time James said, “Idiotic wealthy assholes.”

“Nice,” Lily acknowledged. “Very nice.”

She played a jack because Dorcas wasn’t playing anything.

James smiled again. God, but his dimples were cute. “Is that part of why your friend and mine are--”

They all looked over.

“--kissing?” said James, with surprise.

“Kissing,” said Dorcas, with none.

“I don’t think Marlene knows you two are Ellings brats,” Lily said. “I imagine perhaps she’ll find out some time later and forcibly eject--Sirius?--from her bed.”

“Is he going home with her, then?” said James, swallowing. 

“Or they’ll do it here,” suggested Dorcas. She set down two jacks, stuck her tongue out at Lily, and slapped down another. “On the grass. Right next to you. Baptize you a bit. Marlene’s been known to--”

“--have sex for nineteen hours straight,” said Marlene, clearly, sitting up. She was very flushed. “Upside down. Hanging from the ceiling.”

“Sounds good to me,” said the cigarette boy. Sirius. He sat up, too, his smirk a little more swollen, chin bitten red. “As long as I don’t have to pay for the shirt.”

“Two hundred dollars,” said Marlene. “That’s how much it was.”

“Much more than your mom, then,” reflected Sirius, and kissed her when she flipped him off.

“He’s Ellings scum, Marls,” said Dorcas.

Lily sighed and played a seven, then split the discard pile into three. “Give her a break, Meadowes. Let her have her fun.”

“Ellings?” said Marlene, sharply, yanking herself free of Sirius.

“Majoring in sexual education. Ma’am,” said Sirius.

“I hate you,” said Marlene, and kissed him again.

“This is all so very...hands-on,” James remarked, distinctly uncomfortable.

_“Marlene_ is so very hands-on,” said Dorcas, “and a bitch, and desperately attracted to your friend. This is a common occurrence. I’m serious. Oh. Haha. Get it? I’m not. Actually. Sirius. Because he is.”

Sirius said something against Marlene’s mouth which might have been  _ fuck you. _

Lily poked a queen into Dorcas’s thigh.  _ “Play.” _

Dorcas put down a five.

“I want to learn this game,” said James, but he was looking at Lily like maybe he actually meant,  _ Hello, my name is James Potter, and you’re quite beautiful. Come here often? _

Lily broke eye contact. “I don’t know,” she said.

“It seems vital to my success,” said James, plaintive.

“What’s your success?”

He grimaced. He had a nice grimace, too, Lily noticed, abstractly. “Jazz pianist? Which I suppose is actually sort of the opposite of success.”

“Ohhhhhh,” said Lily, with a lot of feeling.

James eyed her.

“What she means,” said Dorcas, splitting the discard pile again apparently for the hell of it, “is that she finds that career choice incredibly romantic.”

“And incredibly stupid,” said James.

“Like your mom,” said Dorcas, and before Lily could say anything, snapped, “I KNOW! I owe you a Coke.”

“If I use your lines, do I owe you a Coke?” said James.

Lily briefly entertained the idea of looking him in the eye.

“I think you owe me a Coke no matter what,” she told him, and won the game with a well-placed pair of sevens.


End file.
